BOOK REVIEWS

Thinking Otherwise – on TurkeyAnatolian Days and Nights

by William Irwin Thompson

When the average American thinks of the land of Turkey, his or her perceptions have been influenced by movies like Lawrence of Arabia and Midnight Express to see the land as a place of cruelty and ignorance. For the more educated, the images may be of Tamerlane sacking Baghdad, or of Victorian paintings of Turks auctioning naked white women captured by Turkish pirates and then being sold in the slave market. Or they may think of Delacroix’s painting “The Massacre of Chios” and have thoughts of Lord Byron dying while fighting the Turk in defense of Western Civilization. (Pre-Ataturk Turkey was the country that fired canons at the Parthenon.) It is now, thanks to Ataturk, a modern republic, but still is a land where it is a crime to shame the country with criticism or question official government versions of history. Writers like Orhan Pamuk are persecuted for shaming Turkey even as they bring international respect to their homeland. Teaching evolution is banned, wives are locked up in their homes and ruled by their husbands, and history is rewritten to erase the Armenian massacres. The reason Sun-Maid packages their apricots as “Mediterranean” is from fear that Americans would not buy them if they were labeled “Turkish.”

Two American women, Angie Brenner and Joy Stocke, in an act of what Dulce Murphy of Esalen Institute termed “citizen diplomacy,” have decided to take it on themselves to throw a different light on Turkish humanity to dispel these dark misperceptions of the people themselves. Anatolian Days and Nights is presented as a travel book, but it is really a collection of interesting and interlocked short stories that show the kindness and humanity of an ancient people living in an even more ancient land. It is a delight to travel with these two free spirits in a skillful narrative in which we do become interested in the people and the culture, but also, somewhere along the road, find we are as interested in the minds and lively spirits of these two extraordinary women as the people they seek to rescue from our prejudices. The book would make a good female buddies on the road film–an updated Thelma and Louise without the tragic ending of their car soaring over the cliff.

And here I am not thinking of a Hollywood film that would demand script changes to insert the necessary cop car chases, exploding smuggling oil tankers coming out of Iraq, and our dynamic duo pursued by a band of Islamic fundamentalists. And, of course, Hollywood would require some R rated scenes in which Angie the petite hottie opens up about what really went on off camera with Habib. Let’s see: Hmm. I guess I would cast the tall German-Swedish Uma Thurman for the role of Joy Stocke and Angelina Jolie for Angie Brenner.

No, I am not thinking of a Hollywood formula film for thirteen-year olds, but a grown-up film—the kind the Canadians and the French make—one about human relationships and perceptions.

But more than buddies, these two women strike me as avatars of the new era of women and the end of patriarchy. Yes, I know, the abuse of women in the traditional cultures and religions all around the world is still going on with increased force, but remember that a star gives out more light in its death than in its life. Fundamentalism of all kinds—capitalist with the Koch Brothers in Kansas or Islamist with Al Qaeda in Pakistan—give signs that the members of these cultures are scared and fighting hysterically to deny the end of their time.

Carrie Nation carried an axe to chop up the bars of the drunken men of a working class patriarchy—those street angels and house devils who squandered their money on drink rather than using it to support their families. And that is exactly what my Scots-Irish father did. It was my strong mother who held the family together, and when she got tired of the abuse from Dad, decided not to deny life any longer but to have an affair with her doctor, the only one who understood her and to whom she could talk and he would listen. In midlife she had just enough of being punched in the mouth by a drunkard who liked to buy his bar cronies free drinks, and then come home to dribble the remains on the table and expect her to pay the rent and feed the kids.

My mother moved out of the Rick Santorum Catholicism of Irish Chicago in which the priest told her it was God’s will that she suffer as Christ had suffered on the cross for her. In the sunlight of Southern California, the dreary world of Chicago—freezing in the winter and unbreathably humid and hot in the summers–could no longer contain her. She became a free spirit far back in the 1950s–long before the generation of Angie Brenner and Joy Stocke.

The authors of Anatolian Days and Nights strike me as joyous pilgrim souls singing on the road to the Emerald City, where there is no carnival wizard behind the curtain, but a more enlightened culture for women, and for the men who learn how to love them for their minds as well as their bodies.

Joy E. Stocke

In 2006, Joy E. Stocke founded Wild River Review with Kimberly Nagy, an outgrowth of the literary magazine, The Bucks County Writer, of which Stocke was Editor in Chief. In 2009, as their editorial practice grew, Stocke and Nagy founded Wild River Consulting & Publishing, LLC.

With more than twenty-five years experience as a writer and journalist, Stocke works with many of the writers who appear in the pages of Wild River Review, as well as clients from around the world.

In addition, Stocke has shepherded numerous writers into print. She has interviewed Nobel Prize winners Orhan Pamuk and Muhammud Yunus, Pulitzer Prizewinner Paul Muldoon, Paul Holdengraber, host of LIVE from the NYPL; Roshi Joan Halifax, founder of Upaya Zen Center; anthropologist and expert on end of life care, Mary Catherine Bateson; Ivonne Baki, President of the Andean Parliament; and Templeton Prizewinner Freeman Dyson among others.

In 2006, along with Nagy, Stocke interviewed scientists and artists including former Princeton University President Shirley Tilghman and Dean of Faculty, David P. Dobkin for the documentary Quark Park, chronicling the creation of an award-winning park built on a vacant lot in the heart of Princeton, New Jersey; a park that united art, science and community.

In addition, Stocke has written extensively about her travels in Greece and Turkey. Her memoir, Anatolian Days and Nights: A Love Affair with Turkey, Land of Dervishes, Goddesses & Saints, based on more than ten years of travel through Turkey, co-written with Angie Brenner was published in March 2012. Her cookbook, Tree of Life: Turkish Home Cooking will be published in March, 2017 by Quarto Books under the Burgess Lea Press imprint . Stocke and Brenner are currently testing recipes for a companion book, which will feature Anatolian-inspired mezes from around the world.

Stocke’s essay “Turkish American Food” appears in the 2nd edition of the Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America (OUP, 2013). The volume won both International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) for Beverage/Reference/Technical category, 2014; and the Gourmand Award for the Best Food Book of the Year, 2014.

She is the author of a bi-lingual book of poems, Cave of the Bear, translated into Greek by Lili Bita based on her travels in Western Crete, and is currently researching a book about the only hard-finger coral reef in Mexico on the Baja Sur Peninsula. She has been writing about environmental issues there since 2011.

A graduate of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, with a Bachelor of Science in Broadcast Journalism from the Agriculture Journalism School where she also received a minor of Food Science, she participated in the Lindisfarne Symposium on The Evolution of Consciousness with cultural philosopher, poet and historian, William Irwin Thompson. In 2009, she became a Lindisfarne Fellow.

ARCHIVES

Kimberly Nagy

In 2006, Kimberly Nagy founded Wild River Review with Joy E. Stocke; and in 2009, they founded Wild River Consulting & Publishing, LLC. With more than twenty years in the field of publishing, Nagy specializes in market outreach and digital media strategies as well as crafting timeless articles and interviews. She edits many of the writers who appear in the pages of Wild River Review, as well as clients from around the world.

Nagy is an author, editor and professional storyteller. She received her BA in history at Rider University where she was influenced by professors who stressed works of literature alongside dates and historical facts–as well as the importance of including the perspectives of women and minorities in the historical record. During a period in which she fell in love with writing and research, Nagy wrote an award-winning paper about the suppression of free speech during World War I, and which featured early 20th century feminist and civil rights leader, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn.

Nagy continued her graduate studies at University of Connecticut, Storrs, where she studied with Dr. Karen Kupperman, an expert in early contact between Native Americans and the first European settlers. Nagy wrote her Masters thesis, focusing on the work of the first woman to be accepted into the Connecticut Historical Society as well as literary descriptions of Native Americans in Connecticut during the 19th century. Nagy has extensive background and interest in anthropological, oral history and cultural research.

Saad Abulhab

Type designer, librarian, and systems engineer, Saad D. Abulhab, was born in 1958 in Sacramento, California, and grew up in Iraq. Residing in the US since 1979, he is currently Director of Technology of the Newman Library of Baruch College, the City University of New York. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Polytechnic University, and a Master of Science in Library and Information Sciences from Pratt Institute, both in Brooklyn. Involved since 1992 in the field of Arabetic computing and typography, he is most noted for his non-traditional type designs and the Mutamathil type style which was awarded a US Utility Patent in 2003. Designed more that 16 fonts families since 1998 and wrote several articles in the field of Arabetic typography and scripts.

ALL ARTICLES BY SAAD ABULHAB:

Opal Palmer Adisa

Opal Palmer Adisa, Ph. D, diverse and multi-genre, is an exceptional talent, nurtured on cane-sap and the oceanic breeze of the Caribbean. Writer of both poetry and prose, playwright/director, professor, educator and cultural activist, Adisa has lectured and read her work throughout the United States, South Africa, Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Germany, Spain, France, England and Prague, and has performed in Italy and Bosnia. An award-winning poet and prose writer, Adisa has sixteen titles to her credit, including the novel, It Begins With Tears (1997), that Rick Ayers proclaimed as one of the most motivational works for young adults.

She has been a resident artist in internationally acclaimed residencies such as Arte Studio Ginestrelle (Assis, Italy), El Gounda (Egypt), Sacatar Institute (Brazil) and McColl Center, (North Carolina) and Headlines Center for the Arts (California, USA). Opal Palmer Adisa’s work has been reviewed by Ishmael Reed, Al Young, and Alice Walker (Color Purple), who described her work as “solid, visceral, important stories written with integrity and love.”

Following in the tradition of the African “griot” Opal Palmer Adisa, an accomplished storyteller, commands the mastery and extraordinary talent of storytelling, exemplary of her predecessors. Through her imaginative characterizations of people, places and things, she is able to transport her listeners to the very wonderlands she creates.

A gifted diversity trainer, literary critic, and proud mother of three accomplished children, Opal is the former parenting editor and host of KPFA Radio Parenting show in Berkley, California. Columnist for The Graduate Parent for the “Healthy You,” website and wrote a bi-monthly poetry column for The Daily News, St. Thomas. Adisa has published hundreds of articles on different aspects of parenting, writing and poetry and is currently completing a book on effective parenting.

A Distinguished professor of creative writing and literature in the MFA program at California College of the Arts, where she teaches in the Fall. She has been a visiting professor at several universities including, Stanford University, University of California, Berkeley and University of the Virgin Islands. Her poetry, stories, essays and articles on a wide range of subjects have been collected in over 400 journals, anthologies and other publications, including Essence Magazine. She has also conducted workshops in elementary through high school, museums, churches and community centers, as well as in prison and juvenile centers.

Opal Palmer Adisa is a vivacious, motivational speaker who will enthrall and mesmerize you with her words.

Works by Opal Palmer Adisa

Phyllis Carol Agins

Phyllis Carol Agins’ fiction includes two novels: Suisan and Never the Same River Twice, as well as numerous short stories, published in Kalliope, Paragraph, and Lilith Magazine (Fall ‘06), among other journals. Her children’s book, Sophie’s Name, has been in print since 1990, and she also co-authored One God, Sixteen Houses, an architectural study. For many years, she served on the board of the Philadelphia Writers’ Conference and taught writing at Penn State Abington. Lately, she divides her time between Fairmont Park and the Mediterranean coast. She has completed a comic novel about young widowhood and is polishing a literary mystery centering on the Shakespeare authorship question. Her next book will follow a Jewish family as they leave Algeria to make a new life in France and America.

Works by Phyllis Carol Agins

Angela Ajayi

Angela Ajayi spent over ten years in publishing, mainly as a book editor, until she became a freelance writer. She holds a BA from Calvin College and an MA from Columbia University. Her essays and author interviews have appeared in the Star Tribune and Afroeuropa: Journal of Afro-European Studies. She currently writes book reviews for The Common Online. Her first short story, “Galina,” will be published by Fifth Wednesday Journal this fall. She likes to think she defies easy categorization, identifying through birth and citizenship as a Nigerian-Ukrainian-American writer. She lives in Minneapolis with her husband and daughter.

POETRY

WRR@LARGE – WILD COVERAGE

Bill Alexander

Bill Alexander is a published fiction writer for Venture Magazine, Spectrum Magazine, and Drumbeat Magazine. As an intern for Wild River Review, he contributes to the column Wild Table, sharing his thoughts and insights on food and culture. Born and raised in New Jersey and a New Orleanian at heart, Bill is an avid storyteller and devoted writer who believes strongly in originality over faddism.

EMAIL: Luckgreen12@aol.com

Works by Bill Alexander

Chris Allen

Chris Allen became interested in filmmaking during High School, and has pursued it ever since. He studied Bhakti Yoga (which he still practices) in Chicago before receiving a degree in Film and Television from New York University. After raising three children and producing videos in corporate America, Allen started his own film company, Open Sky Cinema, writing and producing documentaries. They include “The Delaware and Raritan Canal,” “Lost Princeton,” “A Warm and Loving Look — The Poetry of Stephen Kalinich,” and “Open Sky.”

In his documentary, “Quark Park,” Allen filmed and interviewed dozens of scientists, artists, sculptors, landscape architects, and architects in collaboration with Quark Park’s creators Peter Soderman, Kevin Wilkes; and with the Wild River Review.

Works by Chris Allen

Renee Ashley

Renée Ashley is the author of five volumes of poetry: Because I Am the Shore I Want to Be the Sea (Subito Book Prize); Basic Heart (winner of the 2008 X.J.Kennedy Poetry Prize); The Revisionist’s Dream; The Various Reasons of Light; and Salt (Brittingham Prize in Poetry, University of Wisconsin Press), as well as a novel, Someplace Like This, and two chapbooks, The Museum of Lost Wings and The Verbs of Desiring. Ashley teaches poetry in the low-residency MFA Program in Creative Writing and across the genres in the MA in Creative Writing and Literature for Educators. She has received fellowships from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts in both poetry and prose and a poetry fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. A portion of her poem, “First Book of the Moon,” is included in a permanent installation in Penn Station, Manhattan, by the artist Larry Kirkland. She has served as Assistant Poetry Coordinator for the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation and, for seven years, as Poetry Editor of The Literary Review. Her new collection, The View from the Body, was published by Black Lawrence Press in March 2016.